Saracens' home used to be a public recreation ground in the North London suburbs where once a stray kick from one of their players landed on the bottom deck of a red bus heading for the city. Nowadays home is often this slightly grander bit of real estate. This is the third of four games Hertfordshire's finest are playing at Wembley this season and the attendance of 40,163 will be bigger than that in Rome for England's visit tomorrow.

London Transport's thoughtful contribution this time was to close the Metropolitan Line from the centre of the city to the stadium but normal service for Saracens has been resumed after two Premiership defeats by London Irish and Leicester. They return to the top of the table but Worcester were not willing to play the role of grateful party guests and quite a lot of metaphorical red wine was spilled on the new sofa by the time they left for home.

Worcester almost snatched a victory in the closing minutes when a dust-up between the forwards saw their New Zealand lock Greg Rawlinson sent to the sin-bin. Rawlinson had been his stroppy best throughout to help keep the Warriors in the game but, ultimately, it was another New Zealander, the Saracens fly-half Glen Jackson, who underpinned their victory with seven successful kicks at goal, his only miss an effort from just inside the Worcester half in the final minute.

Worcester scored two tries to their hosts' one and Saracens will have to be a lot more ambitious if they are to win the Premiership for the first time. In the first half Worcester took the game to them and Saracens were looking anxious a quarter of an hour before break when Neil de Kock attempted to clear his lines and the scrum-half saw his kick charged down by Kai Horstmann. Tom Wood, Horstmann's back-row partner, fell on the ball for the first try.

Wood is off to Northampton at the end of the season and Worcester will miss him. He was excellent all afternoon and played a part in Worcester's next try eight minutes after the break. Alex Goode's brave tackle prevented Miles Benjamin scoring a try but from the ensuring scrum the Saracens prop Carlos Nieto, who had only just come on the field, was shown a yellow card for helping pull the scrum down. The seven-man Saracens pack was then judged to have disrupted the set-piece again and Dave Pearson awarded the penalty try.

Suddenly, though, Saracens sprang into life. The full-back Goode has been tipped to play for England before long and he at last had the chance to show his counterattacking skills. Goode ran from inside his own half, hacked the ball on and Chris Wyles scooped it on and into the hands of De Kock who joyously dived over beneath the posts to atone for his earlier error.

Saracens held on but, in truth, Worcester were more difficult opponents than South Africa, beaten here in the autumn. Saracens are feeling at home at Wembley.